I just saw the movie today in Dallas, Tx. I must say that I had the same reaction about the comment to Blair about the same thing happening to him. Given the state of politics today in Britain it was very apt and very chilling.

The movie over all was very good. It gives the viewer a good introduction into what the establishment really is. I found the movie quite genuinely sympathetic to the Queen and made the viewer empathize with and for her as sh is genuinely puzzled by the reactions of "her people".

It also amused me when as she is talking with her mother, the Queen Mum, she is talking about handing it over to the next generation when she doesn't get the current people. The Queen Mum comes off with a diatribe about how she should reassert her authority and who do they think they are trying to order Elizabeth around.

This goes against the grain because the Queen Mum was a genius at public relations. She was the person who during WWII said that she could look the East End in the face as the royal couple and Buckingham Palace had been bombed as well.

Charles is portrayed as tentative and weak. He does show his support for the boys and there is a touching scene when he goes to hospital to see Diana in her coffin.
Phillip is portrayed as a buffoon and not the strong individual that I believe that he is. However, they do show him as a support to the Queen even if it is in a negative light.
Sir Robin Janvrin, her private secretary is shown to be a brilliant, in my opinion, manipulator who has just the right touch to get the Queen to do her duty so to speak. He encourages her will just enough humility and graciousness to get the PM's message across. He also at the same time shows the PM where her Majesty is coming from. Very well done film. Alot of dialogue is pure fiction as we don't know what went on behind closed doors and probably won't know any personal information until or when the Queen's, Phillip's and the Queen Mum;'s diaries are made available to the public and biographers.

I would recommend it. It certainly hit me in a postive way and made me think about the inordinate task that a 70 year old woman was asked to do and how she had to come out of her comfort zone. Helen Mirren is amazing and you think she is really the Queen. !!

Sky Dragon,
I think you mis read me. I was trying to say that it gives an impression about how the queens' court is organized, NOT how people actually would talk and make decisions ect. Also I said "Alot of dialogue is pure fiction as we don't know what went on behind closed doors and probably won't know any personal information until or when the Queen's, Phillip's and the Queen Mum;'s diaries are made available to the public and biographers."

So please read my post again carefully. I took this as a criticism and this is my own opinion.

So please read my post again carefully. I took this as a criticism and this is my own opinion.

This is what you said."It gives the viewer a good introduction into what the establishment really is".

It is my opinion that nobody is able to get any introduction into how the establishment works from this work of fiction, but I am sorry that my reply to one section of your post seems to have upset you.

However, I would also disagree with your suggestion that the Queen was puzzled by anyones reaction:-"I found the movie quite genuinely sympathetic to the Queen and made the viewer empathize with and for her as sh is genuinely puzzled by the reactions of "her people".

Well, that may be how she's portrayed in the movie. She herself may not have been puzzled by the reaction to Diana's death, but an awful lot of people were so it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that she was as taken aback as many of the rest of us by the overt emotionalism.

Well, that may be how she's portrayed in the movie. She herself may not have been puzzled by the reaction to Diana's death, but an awful lot of people were so it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that she was as taken aback as many of the rest of us by the overt emotionalism.

Yes it may be how Helen Mirren portrays her but, horrified is the word that springs to my mind for a real life reaction.

I saw the movie tonight and agree with Norwegianne's comments. There were, in addition, two poignant moments for me.

The first was when the Queen and RF was at odds with the rest of the world (or so it seemed) with how to respond to Diana's death and the charcter of Prince Charles blurts out to his private secretary that his mother doesn't understand the "two Dianas" (one seen by the public and one, completely unrelated, seen inside their family) He argues that the Queen has to realize that the country is mourning the public Diana (wonderful mother, tireless humanitarian, iconic beauty) and to understand the public grief, they need to mourn this SAME Diana- not the insecure, difficult and volatile Diana they knew privately within their family. He verbalises his belief that there are two identities within a royal life- public and private. The Queen's stance is that the two are the same- the reserved and regal person she is in public is, for the most part, the person she is in private and her private reaction to the whole situation is how she feels she must react publicly. From this, the movie follows the Queen examining her sense of duty within her life/monarchy. Her shock at the response to Diana's death makes her question this sense of duty and her previously held assumption that this duty would ALWAYS be reciprocated by the British people. There is certainly some question about the sincerity of the words she delivered publicly that week but I think the audience, along with the character of Tony Blair, comes to understand and appreciate her on a different level.

I don't want to ruin the impact of the ending for all of you but her final dialogue with Tony Blair is really wonderful and concludes how she has grappled with her sense of duty in a more modern world- and places her importance in history against his. It's charming and very poignant.

Helen Mirren is completely convincing as Elizabeth II and while we'll never know what went through the mind of this woman during that week in 1997, it's a really great look at what it really means to be a monarch.

Helen Mirren is completely convincing as Elizabeth II and while we'll never know what went through the mind of this woman during that week in 1997, it's a really great look at what it really means to be a monarch.

It's certainly a worthwhile evening's entertainment.

Azile

A very nice summary IMO. It is only the wording in the last section that I find difficult, but, you know what a fussy person I am.

Well, that may be how she's portrayed in the movie. She herself may not have been puzzled by the reaction to Diana's death, but an awful lot of people were so it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that she was as taken aback as many of the rest of us by the overt emotionalism.

Well, although I haven't seen the film, I would also think the Queen was surprised by the widespread negative reaction to her stoicism. After all, she's been stoic all her life-she's never been an outwardly emotional woman. I'm sure it must have been puzzling to her why, when her stoicism had been acceptable for decades, it was suddenly being criticized.

Personally, I've always admired her steadfastness and her rather solemn facade. It gives weight to her diplomatic and ceremonial roles by exhibiting how seriously she takes those roles. But, we often see glimpses of the warmer private woman, and that's a nice balance.

A very nice summary IMO. It is only the wording in the last section that I find difficult, but, you know what a fussy person I am.

But that's exactly my point- what does it really mean to be a monarch? That is defined only within the mind of the monarch herself. This movie is about how a monarch sees herself and how a single event challenges that view. It's about how modern expectations confront trandition. And yes- it's about one woman questioning her life-long beliefs of what it means to be a monarch and the reciprocal relationship she always expected to receive from her subjects.

Of course, for all we know, this is 100% fiction. It just a really interesting perspective on a week that most of us remember very well- a week where the monarchy suddenly and unexpectedly was considered distant, cold and irrelevant.

I have seen this movie twice and I must say that I think it is wonderful! It brings back the week of Diana's untimely death and really makes me side with the Queen. Why did the Royal Family have to go before the people and turn this very sad, private family issues, into a peformance of grief!

I saw it tonight. Arse gravy. Pure arse gravy. It was the most pathetic, snot driven, poorly written, cinematically backward film I have ever had the misfortune to pay for. I said to the cashier at the cinema, "You should wear a black and white striped top and a beret, because you've just robbed me of 3.50". I have never been so bored in all my life. Helen Mirren comes on in some dodgy old wig and a forced voice and displays the film equivalent of Chernobyl. This endless dribbly garbage has no real plot and any acting ability has obviously been left at home. Add the hen-party performances of Mirren and Sylvia Sims to the slash-your-wrists soundtrack and you get a mucus drenched flurry of crap acting and extremely poor direction. It runs like an Ealing comedy without the laughs but with the same dodgy scenery.

So, there I sat, thinking of the money I'd just spent practically seeing pennies float away before my eyes and I sat being forced to watch Sylvia Sims portray the Queen Mother on this screen which is obviously designed for inmates of Moorefield's Eye Hospital. If we're supposed to believe Sims's portrayal is right, the Queen Mother was obviously on LSD in her latter years and Prince Philip was cryogenically frozen in 1956.

Poor Robin Janvrin was portrayed as Darth Vader whilst Charles - well, if he really is that weak I've seriously got him wrong. Now, alot of people have said that they truly believed Helen Mirren was the Queen. Has the Queen undergone a full body transplant since I last saw her? Goodness me, I sat there in this cinema and usually I think people doing rude things in the back row is appalling behaviour but what else was there do whilst this flood of cinematic defecation was splurged out over the popcorn and 3 old ladies in the front view who actually walked out. I would have done the same but I thought, "I've paid this much, I'm staying".

My advice - don't go and see this film and certainly don't go on a date to the cinema to see this because you'll never see him again. I can't actually believe this film is being tipped for awards! I came out of the cinema and I thought for a moment that someone had crept in and rubbed penguin faeces into my eyes. It was just like watching a very bad school play production of "Mrs Doubtfire" where the title role is played by the Headmaster who dresses up in sussies at the weekends anyway. Just appalling.

But that's exactly my point- what does it really mean to be a monarch? That is defined only within the mind of the monarch herself. This movie is about how a monarch sees herself and how a single event challenges that view. It's about how modern expectations confront trandition. And yes- it's about one woman questioning her life-long beliefs of what it means to be a monarch and the reciprocal relationship she always expected to receive from her subjects.

Of course, for all we know, this is 100% fiction. It just a really interesting perspective on a week that most of us remember very well- a week where the monarchy suddenly and unexpectedly was considered distant, cold and irrelevant.

Azile

You must have been more impressed by the actor who portrayed Charles than I was azile. I thought he played Charles as well meaning but ineffective.

I was impressed by the statement though that the Queen had seen a very different side of Diana than the public had. The actor who played Tony Blair later said something similar but more effectively. This to me was the most riveting part of the whole movie. Why, people wondered, were the Royal Family so cold and unfeeling toward Diana? The movie pointed out that a simple answer could be that the woman the royals knew as Diana was very different than the woman the public knew as Diana. No wonder the reactions of the Queen and the public were so different to Diana's death. It's but a theory but an interesting one at that.

Now I'd like to see the movie again because on second thought, I wasn't THAT impressed with Helen Mirren's portrayal of the Queen. During the first part of the movie, I kept getting reminded of Helen's previous character, homicide detective, Chief Inspector Jane Tennyson, from Prime Suspect. Helen played a tough as nails Queen and I'm not sure the real Queen is that remorselessly tough (the Queen Mother, yes, I would have believed was that tough :) )

In fact, the police detective that Helen's previous character was based upon commented in an interview that Helen had played her a lot tougher and less sympathetic than she actually was. I thought if Helen can play a homicide detective tougher than the real thing, she must play her characters with a really tough edge to them.

__________________"One thing we can do is make the choice to view the world in a healthy way. We can choose to see the world as safe with only moments of danger rather than seeing the world as dangerous with only moments of safety."

Poor Robin Janvrin was portrayed as Darth Vader whilst Charles - well, if he really is that weak I've seriously got him wrong.

I see you and I share the same opinion over the movie's portrayal of Charles, BeatrixFan.

I wasn't so much impressed with Robin Janvrin, but the guy who played Blair's assistant seemed like the devil incarnate He definitely did make MY skin crawl.

Now I wonder if the movie expected you to despise him or sympathize with him for having to deal with 'out of touch' royals?

__________________"One thing we can do is make the choice to view the world in a healthy way. We can choose to see the world as safe with only moments of danger rather than seeing the world as dangerous with only moments of safety."

I saw the movie last sunday and I thought it was very good. The acting was spectacular. My favorite and poignant scene was when the Queen met this Deer and she grew found of it. Then she was told that while the deer was trying to run away from the hunters it was shot. What I think was the irony of that scene was that the deer represented Diana and the hunters represented the paparazzi. I would give this movie 4 1/2 stars!!

__________________"I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved."
Diana, the Princess of Wales

Ah. The deer. I forgot to mention the deer. Now, I can't work out if this is a carefully crafted metaphor of innocence and purity - or a vomit inducing swipe at the Queen and her passion for blood sports, twisted into some phlegm drenched statement about love?

Well just to clarify, I also wasn't so impressed by the performance or portrayal of the Prince Charles character (as he came across as really weak and almost unbelieveably distraught over Diana's death). However- I was really struck by some of his dialogue, particuarly the statement about the public Diana being totally different from the private Diana and this being the reason why the Royal Family was not able to relate to or participate with public grief. It's an interesting possibility to consider.

I thought this movie was really about the Queen- her role, her duty, her view of public expectation and an event that resulted in public reaction she was shocked by, causing her to question everything she took for granted. This is what I found so interesting- that in death, Diana may have been able to accomplish what she was not able to in life- modernizing the monarchy and forcing compassion to be included in tradition.

Tony Blair was a secondary figure and the rest of the royals, almost background. Even Diana herself was a background character for the main message of the movie. It wasn't always a flattering portrayal and likely complete fiction, but still intriguing. Was the hairstyle perfect or the characters identical to those in real life? Of course not. But it was thought provoking nonetheless.

I still think it's a worthwhile evening out, particularly for us royal watchers and those who remember that week. My recommendation still stands!

that in death, Diana may have been able to accomplish what she was not able to in life- modernizing the monarchy and forcing compassion to be included in tradition.

I have to say that once again I disagree with you. The RF were always compassionate, just not touchy feely and nothing has changed there. IMO, a lot of the Brits who watched the mob rule mentality, feel a sense of shame for the way the Queen and the royals were treated.

Like BeatrixFan, I too am horrified that Mirrens portrayal of our Queen is being touted for awards, or indeed the portrayal of Charles as a weak and fairly ineffectual character. I do believe that he was grief stricken by Dianas death, after all most people who have suffered the loss of anyone who was close, suffer from the 'what if' syndrome.

I do agree and have always thought Charles to have been terribly effected by the death of Diana.

All and all aside, she was once his wife, the mother of his children and I'm sure, that amongst the pain and emotional hardships sustained by both that there would have been moments where happiness or at least contentment, wasn't totally unheard of.